2 Fox's Tragedy 2

A child's mind has trouble remembering an adult's life, yet Rey's old-world visited him by dreams and flashbacks. Pastor Gregory had been frank with him, he wasn't his legitimate son. When he was five years old he was told the story of how on a silent winter's night there had been a knock on the door of the little church. When he had roused to open it, still in his bedclothes, he had found a child in ragged and muddied cloth left not two inches from the threshold. Not fitting with the condition of the cloth was an immaculate silver pendant with the name Rey spelled in onyx.

The church, or rather the pastor, had adopted him, not knowing what else to do. Given his age, he was more of a grandfather to Rey than anything.

The back rooms of the church also served as their parsonage, and not to them alone, a woman who Rey was pretty sure wasn't family of Gregory by blood or marriage, lived with them. She went by Ms. Tanaka and was clearly even older than the pastor by quite a sum.

For the first few years, until he was about six, Rey thought himself no different from any other boys in the small village surrounding the church. But as time went on, and similar dreams became a pattern, showing a foreign place where people dressed funny and all was metal and stone he began to grow confused. They started flashing by him in the day and he began first to suspect something was just off.

Not long after he turned twelve the pastor and Ms. Tanaka began looking at him with concern, he would often blank out mid-day while doing chores or running errands and began to carry an out of place look. It was the sort of look an adult just a bit lived should have, not an innocent child. "Every time you come back from the village," Gregory said one afternoon when Rey had returned with an especially dark expression. He had been seated at a splitting wood table in the brown and white attire worn every Sunday morning. His copper monocle rested on the wrinkles around his eye reflecting the sun's light which streamed through the window. "You look so incredibly heavy, why is that my son?" he asked hoarsely through his mustache. "The other children aren't a problem for you I hope."

"I don't see the others anymore," Rey replied with a half sunken look.

"Oh? And why is that? You never were an unsociable boy."

"I think I scare them," it was not at all inaccurate. His appearance had become sour and his hair had gone ghostly pale. A sharp expression was his default and his teeth were out of place just enough to not quite be mistaken for fangs. "And it's not like I liked being with them that much anyway."

"You didn't?" He looked at him with a welcoming and personable demeanor, different from the one he always wore before the villagers.

"When we play games with sticks and stones I see things."

"And what kinds of things do you see?"

"Strange carriages of metal, big stone buildings, and..." he trailed off with nonpresent eyes.

"Hm? And?" The pastor pried.

"There's a scary woman, she's always there, wearing a bone mask..." The pastor chuckled.

"My son you live in the church and I know you're not plagued with demons. You must be one of those types gifted with imagination," he assured.

"It doesn't feel like a gift," Rey muttered.

"God uses us in mysterious ways we often don't understand."

"I- I guess..."

"You should try to show the kids you're harmless," he advised heartily. It eased his mind for a little while, but that night in his cramped room when he lay in his bed trying to sleep through the creaking of the old frame, again he saw his former life. Yet still, he was unaware it was his own and interpreted it as no more than a plague of the mind. For hours he twisted and turned, adjusting and readjusting, nearly falling asleep only to be frightfully jerked awake by sights he couldn't comprehend. He found he was covered in a sticking sweat and more than anything else needed to relieve himself.

Rey exited his room while making a great effort at silence. He stood in the tight hall for a moment, floorboards creaking slightly under his feet. To his left was the door to the church part of the building, to his right was a faint orange glow bouncing softly off the walls, no doubt from the fireplace in the living room. Sleepily he made his way to the light. He softly stepped into the room while rubbing his eyes. In the oak chair, a sleeping Ms. Tanaka rocked ever so slightly. Rey made his way outside without a sound. In the cool night, he stood for a moment as with the wind what was almost a voice whispered through the grass and silence. Do you remember? It asked. Do you remember yet, my little fox?

Not awake enough to pay it any mind Rey made his way to the shack of an outhouse and after taking his time, decided it was far too chilly out. With a smack, the door nearly fell off behind him. He entered the church building once more to find Ms. Tanaka had since awoken. She was rocking in her chair now. And with a forlorn expression muttered a foreign song beneath her breath. It wasn't English, he noticed.

Tanaka turned her head of thinning pale hair to look at him with her small sunken eyes. "You're up late aren't you?" she croaked. Her expression was the same as always; sort of sharp but clearly intelligent.

"I… can't sleep."

"Huh, why not?"

"I see more things and more of that woman when I try..." he explained.

"Gregory told me about it," she turned back to the fire. "He thinks you just gotta weird head."

"You don't?"

"Why would I? See it's the spirit that's in question," she told him.

"Spirit?" she gave a rough and momentary laugh.

"Come have a seat here by the fire," she beckoned. Rey walked over and sat on the floor beside her. "Now I'm not one of those Catholics."

"You don't believe in God?" he puzzled. Ms. Tanaka grinned a grin only an old lady could.

"I believe in the gods, boy, the spirits or deities, youkai even, eh - whatever you want to call them," she explained. The old world of angels, deities, and spirits. The words were faint in his mind but Rey was too focused on listening to Ms. Tanaka to be unsettled by them. "If their God is real he's only in this world, the spirits transcend that. They're everywhere in all worlds and realms."

"I don't think I believe you." She smiled.

"I never asked you to," she assured. "How about I tell you a story," Tanaka started as Rey nodded, "a story of foxes." She produced an intricate and detailed cherry carving of a fox with white paint defining its features. She turned it over in her frail fingers a bit with an odd demeanor. "Now the foxes are the greatest of the spirits, the white ones guide our souls, the red bring us miracles, and the black warn us of the dark," she told him. "See a long time ago a fox with two tails appeared with the power to take the form of a man. He claimed to be from another realm and wielded strength and magic beyond anything men could achieve. He was a twisted being who enacted wicked deeds on the people, yet in his eyes, he always carried a softness and sadness. One day a brave white fox confronted him asking how such an evil soul could be so soft. With a deep sigh, he said he wasn't free. When the white one asked him what he meant he just smiled and patted her head saying death is a cunning one." For a moment Tanaka stopped, apparently lost in thought before continuing. "You remind me a lot of that two-tailed fox boy," she said softly speaking with an impossible familiarity of the topic.

"What do you mean?" She chuckled.

"Oh, nothing, you should go and try to sleep." Rey got up and crossed the distance to the hall unsure how he felt about the last comment before looking back.

"Why did he have two tails?" he asked. Ms. Tanaka shrugged.

"Maybe because he was from another world. There's a saying that goes, a fox with two tails is something unnatural one should pray to never meet. Say, I have a question for you," he tilted his head. "That woman, what's she like?" There was a moment of silence before he responded.

"She has white hair and a scythe..." Tanaka nodded, whispering something under her breath as he exited.